Numerous Outlets Duped By Fake News Story On NBA And NC Anti-Gay Law

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addresses the media during a news conference, in New York, Tuesday, April 29, 2014. Silver announced that he is banning Los Angeles Clipper owner Donald Sterling for life from the Clipper... NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addresses the media during a news conference, in New York, Tuesday, April 29, 2014. Silver announced that he is banning Los Angeles Clipper owner Donald Sterling for life from the Clippers organization over racist comments in a recording. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) MORE LESS
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Several news sites issued corrections Monday after citing a fake news story claiming that the NBA had given North Carolina an ultimatum to repeal the new anti-LGBT law within a month or the league would move the 2017 All-Star game out of Charlotte.

The story appeared on a website purporting to be ABC News, abcnews.com.co.

The fake story included a fake quote from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, even though the league has not commented on the law since it’s initial press release condemning the law.

Cleveland.com picked up the fake story and combined it with an Associated Press report on the law that bars local measures protecting LGBT people from discrimination and limits employees ability to sue over workplace discrimination of all kinds. The site’s vice president of content, Chris Quinn, apologized on Monday

“We combined it with an Associated Press story about the North Carolina controversy but left the AP byline on what we published,” Quinn wrote. “That made it appear that the Associated Press had been duped by the impostor website. That’s not fair to the Associated Press, a valued partner for cleveland.com.”

NBC Sports’ ProBasketballTalk also ran with the fake news story, but deleted the post after issuing a correction on Monday, according to Forbes.

The website on which the fake story appears also includes headlines like “New McDonald’s In Scottsdale Run Entirely By Robots.” The site lists what appears to be the Westboro Baptist Church’s phone number for any readers with complaints.

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Notable Replies

  1. The NBA would like to make it emphatically clear they don’t know what their position is on LGBT discrimination.

  2. /babypowders right hand

    /slaps MSM in the mouth

  3. The NBA also suggested they break all the windows on the ground floor of the state house.

  4. I don’t think that’s necessarily fair. First, this story is more about the MSM’s incompetence and the industry standard of unjournalism than it is about the NBA’s position, which IIRC it actually has made clear is against the NC law. Second, given the amount of money and the contractual obligations likely involved int he All-Star game, making the withdrawal thereof from NC a prerequisite for considering the NBA to have responded adequately is a little unfair. Sure, ask for or demand it, but shit has to stay within reason. Are we to expect all businesses to just up and leave the state?

  5. I’m sure Bruce Springsteen broke various contractual obligations when he canceled his Greensboro, NC concert on short notice. Nevertheless he sucked it up and told NC to piss off. Everything south of the Mason-Dixon should be shunned into the stone age as far as I can see. There are 35+ other states that could use the jobs. China doesn’t give a damn if their imports come from Pennsylvania or Tennessee.

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